The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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We constantly track our weather as it fluctuates day-to-day, but determining patterns over time can help us differentiate exactly when 'weather' becomes 'climate'.
Climate change may be visibly changing our world, but it cannot be charged with every meteorological peculiarity given the inherent chaos of the atmosphere. The only way to make sense of these changes is by looking for trends, and these days we have a perfect vantage point from space.
The world of weather watching is ruled by an armada of satellites, and Eumetsat in Germany owns and runs Europe's fleet of high-precision machines. These hugely powerful devices are capable of mapping both high resolution temperature and humidity measurements, and different images of Earth in near real-time.
Thanks to these technological behemoths, we now know more about our weather than ever before; but understanding climate is a different matter.